The World Cup is enjoying a surge in TV ratings thanks to excitement surrounding the U.S. team's strong performance, putting the tournament among the elite telecasts in all of sports. But can soccer sustain its burst in popularity in the U.S.?

There seems to be no one way World Cup fans are watching games. Many fans are watching soccer matches via multiple devices, often at the same time, according to a survey from Experian Marketing Services. Experian's Bill Tancer discusses the trends on the News Hub with Sara Murray.

The surprising run has made for captivating television. Ratings for the Germany match weren't available on Thursday, but it is clear already that this year's telecasts are setting records. The U.S. match versus Portugal on Sunday wasn't just the highest-rated soccer game ever in the U.S. The combined viewership of the game was 24.7 million between ESPN and Univision, making it the most-viewed sporting event of the year so far, excluding American football, a perennial ratings juggernaut.

"International World Cup soccer has definitely arrived in the U.S.," said Lee Berke, a sports-media consultant. "This definitely signals the arrival of World Cup soccer as a major television property."

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The online activity has been just as intense. ESPN says online viewing of matches totals 20.5 million hours, among the most ever for any sporting event. Over 11 million people viewed tweets about the U.S. match against Ghana and a similar number saw tweets about the Portugal match, Nielsen says. That is higher than the 9.1 million people who saw tweets about the finale of "Breaking Bad" last fall.

The excitement was palpable Thursday at Rí Rá, an Irish pub in midtown Atlanta where U.S. supporters packed the house on their lunch breaks to see the Germany match. Many of them were skipping out on work. "It's been insane compared with four years ago," said Peter Constant, the pub's manager. "The fact that the Americans are doing well obviously helps a whole lot."

But does the enthusiasm for the World Cup signal a lasting shift in Americans' interest in soccer? The tournament happens only once every four years—and the U.S. only plays a handful of matches.

Andrea Bess, a 29-year-old who was at the Atlanta pub, said she has become a huge World Cup fan, but doesn't follow the sport otherwise. "I'm the perfect kind of American. I only watch during the World Cup," she said.

That helps explain why ratings of soccer telecasts outside of the World Cup are relatively muted. Major League Soccer matches averaged 174,000 viewers last season, according to Nielsen, up 6% from the previous year. The finals on ESPN, known as the MLS Cup, pulled in 505,000 viewers in December. The English Premier League averaged 395,000 viewers this season on NBC Sports Network. Fox's Champions League title game got 3.1 million viewers.

Actor and comedian Will Ferrell made a guest appearance at the U.S. Soccer World Cup Fan party in Recife, Brazil on Wednesday. The event was held in anticipation for Team USA's match against Germany set for Thursday, June 26.

Sara Murray and Geoff Foster discuss the U.S. soccer team's results at the World Cup, and Telis Demos looks at where Alibaba's shares will trade in its U.S. IPO.

In contrast, the big U.S. sports leagues keep up interest year-round. The NBA on Time Warner Inc.TWX-0.45%'s TNT network averaged about 2 million viewers a game this regular season and 6.8 million viewers during the Western Conference Finals. Football towered over it all: NFL games averaged 17.6 million viewers during the 2013 season.

Berke said MLS games might see a lift in ratings if the U.S. team continues to advance and the excitement over its success keeps building.

There have been bigger international sporting events for the U.S., historically: Some 34 million people tuned in to watch the U.S. defeat the Soviet Union in men's hockey's "Miracle on Ice" at the 1980 Winter Olympics, for example. And at the 2010 Olympics, Canada's victory over the U.S. in hockey was watched by 27.6 million people.

In addition to the huge viewership for matches involving the U.S., general interest in the World Cup has been building in recent years. This year's tournament is averaging four million U.S. viewers, twice the viewership in 2002, according to Nielsen.

Several thousand fans huddled at Grant Park in Chicago for the Germany match, most draped in red, white and blue with their necks craned up to the big screen. Dr. Justin Hourmozdi of Detroit drove into Chicago to meet his brother Johnny, a medical student, for the game. They each had matching USA banners wrapped around their heads and American flag glasses. "There's a real feeling now that, 'Oh, it's cool to watch soccer,'" Justin said. "Our generation was the kids who played little-league soccer. That helps."

In Raleigh, N.C., more than 500 people crowded into Tyler's Restaurant and Taproom for Thursday's game. Ten-year-old Gabriel Edmonston was sporting a Team USA jersey alongside his father, a local pastor. "At recess, no one is playing football or baseball," he said. "They're playing soccer. It's the most played sport in the world."

Nearby, North Carolina State University faculty member Russell Gorga, said he happily watches soccer every four years, for as long as the U.S. wins. "Look, our kids play it, it's popular until after high school and it goes away," Gorga said.

There are some die-hard, year-round soccer fans out there, too. At the Atlanta pub, college student Kevin Davis said he watches the English Premiere League every weekend and follows Germany's Bundesliga league. "Our generation is way more into it. That's a fact," said Davis. He and other young viewers credited some FIFA's soccer videogame with boosting interest in the sport.

During the years when the World Cup's popularity has grown, the Hispanic population of the U.S. has grown. There were 37.4 million Hispanics in the U.S. in 2002, representing 13.3% of the total population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2012, the Hispanic population was 53 million, making up 17% of the U.S. population.

"I think Hispanics are clearly fueling the growth," said Keith Turner, president of sales and marketing for Univision Communications Inc. "They are soccer fanatics." More people tuned in to watch the Spanish-language broadcast of the MLS Cup Final on Univision Communications' UniMas network than the English-language broadcast of the match on ESPN.

Berke noted that the biggest beneficiary of soccer's growing popularity in the U.S. won't be ESPN, but Fox—which has sealed up the rights to the next two World Cups. (Fox-parent 21st Century Fox Inc. and Wall Street Journal-owner News Corp were part of the same company until 2013.)

Fox will pay an estimated $203 million for the 2018 World Cup, according to David Bank, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, a huge jump from the $55 million ESPN is paying for this tournament. While that is a pittance compared with the $1.8 billion a year that ESPN is currently paying for the NFL or $485 million it is paying for the NBA, according to Bank's estimates, it shows how fast the value of the World Cup is growing in the U.S.

Berke said all signs are "pointing in the right direction for the growth of soccer as a television property."

Don´t take it hard but thats the way people outside US feel about you guys call soccer to FOOTBALL and say it´s bad,the folks there that says soccer it´s bad never seen a decent footbal(soccer whatever)match

I dont even understand why you call it football to a sport that
hardly uses feet,it´s 90% played with hands sould it be called
handball?O no,wait there is a sport already with that name,why do you
call soccer to football anyway it´s playerd with
feet´s,head,chest,knees,everything besides,hands(except for the
goalkeeper),somebody called already in the comments that soccer(as you
call)are a handless game now that´s a fortune in my country when we made
a certain gest with the hands we are making reference to gay
people(nothing against them)but when you call football a game of
men´s...Get over whith you usa people don´t accept soccer (real)
"FOOTBALL" because you are a bunch off (honored but destroid)apachee
offspring(great race by the way) joined with british blood that
(unfairly) maked of you slaves for years and you cant just accept the
fact that soccer(FOOTBALL) was invented and made popular by your masters
in the opression years and that passed over generations and it was
hard after independence(by the way happybythday to you American
folks,dont take to hard the criticism)to acept trhe Bristish main sport.

I advise you to go to youtube and watch some soccer videos that if you want i put some links.

Nobody outside north America like´s your stupid sports,nfl is no action just player´s in formation and tactics for hours just to see 10m action like somebody said here already.Nba?A sport that´s not allowed any phisical contact and everything is a foul is a sissy's game,baseball?Outside no one understands baseball the only American sport we European´s like it's NHL but it doesn´t have enough worldwide popularity and a big world cup for people to enjoy

As soon as a great American Soccer team wins a major Soccer cup, for sure there will be a rage for Soccer in the US just as there was a passion for cycling and the Tour de France when Lance Armstrong ( sorry for this example) started winning.

Besides beeing hugely popular around the world it is also the cheapest sport activity ever.

The only problem with Soccer is that the saying goes"Football(Soccer) is a gentlemen Sport played by hooligans when Rugby is a hooligans' sport played by gentlemen.

Since in the US neither Soccer nor Rugby are too widespread at the moment, Americans still have a choice of their next national passion(?).

@John AndrewsHave you ever attended a soccer match in Europe and seen the expressions of hate and violence there? Ever heard of a soccer hooligan or a soccer riot? Even during NFL games you don't see that kind of xenophobia and racist hatred like during soccer games in Europe and elsewhere in the world. In the US, sports are more a family event. No one in Europe in their right mind takes their kids to soccer matches. Seen any kids at the World Cup? Your blind hatred of the US is a mental disturbance.

The reason for USAs love affair with such a boring sport as NFL is that the USA is a war loving nation.. They love being aggressive, physical and warlike and nfl is a representation of a war conflict, just like old war battalions used to line up facing each other in formation,. That's what I see when I watch an nfl game. It looks like an old battle formation. That's why the USA is fascinated with such a slow, boring game that in 4 hours of a game has 90% commercials and replays and only 12 minutes of actual gameplay action divided up into tiny snippets.

All the football haters are getting jealous from all the love the sport is getting from within the USA.. USA has the 2 most boring and useless sports ever invented in human history: NFL FATball. And. obeseball

The big soccer breakout has been just around the corner for 40 years. What's gone wrong? Easy. It's un-American.

We don't like ties. You win or you lose, but a tie is like kissing your sister.

We like scoring. It's the end that justifies the means & makes it all worthwhile. Italians & Belgians can find beauty in the flow of the game. They've had 2000 years to get used to not scoring. They've gone centuries without a score, figuratively speaking.

We need to know when it's going to be over. There's just something wrong when everyone, including the players, is surprised when it's finished.

And finally, they whine a lot but don't fight. How are we supposed to care when the players don't care enough to whack each other once in a while. Of course they don't fight. You can't use your arms for anything. In fact arms atrophy in this sport. What could be more un-American?

I love it. Those who dislike soccer wouldn't bother to write if they weren't hearing footsteps. And they're running out of arguments. Nobody cares? See the story above. Bunch of foreigners? Have a look at the NBA, NHL, tennis, golf, etc. Too low scoring? Tell that to the millions of Americans who went wild over the Landon Donovan goal that got the U.S. a 1-0 win four years ago. Too boring? First, if you'd ever played soccer at a competitive level, you'd understand what the heck is going on during a match and appreciate how amazing these World Cup players are. Second, you've got to care. I once sat through triple overtime of a basketball telecast while it pre-empted the beginning of a soccer match, and I was bored stiff because I just didn't care who won. With this World Cup, we're down to two final false arguments. One: Soccer players are wimps. The worst injuries I ever saw (a compound leg fracture, a shattered eye socket) occurred in my Sunday over-30 recreational league. (My own worst injury in that same league required 46 stitches to close). The other: Why pay attention? America isn't playing with its best athletes. If that's a reference to those enormous slabs of meat at an NFL combine, let them play soccer from age 5 on and Neymar (132 pounds) and Lionel Messi (5 foot 7) would still humiliate them. Anyway, best response was by Jeff Densk below, about great empires waxing and waning. If the soccer haters believe that America's big four of gridiron football, baseball, basketball and hockey will never change, I come from a time when boxing and horse racing were huge, and every hamlet in this country had a bowling alley.

@Frank Napoli, wrong. Soccer players walk and/or jog lightly A LOT. Watch the world's best player, Ronaldo, as an example. He camps out on his side of the field waiting to make a quick burst to accept a pass or blow by the defense. A typical defensive back in football could do this easily. Look at the US team; they may not be the best in the world, but they can hold their own with the best. And yet few if any of them could have made their college's football team, let alone play at a high level. If soccer ever starts to attract our best athletes, the US will dominate.

The World Cup is a month of soccer, during the European off-season, every 4 years. I watch the Premiership, but not every game, because there are 38 regular games for each team in the Premiership each year. Plus the FA games. Lots of MLS games, but again a lot over the summer (as opposed to the Aug-May English soccer year). So there is no way these games can possibly command your attention the way the one-month World Cup can.

The answer is, No. This year's world cup is at the appropriate time: after basketball season and before the 2nd half of baseball season. Had the cup been scheduled during football season, not a single American would be watching. Thus, while people will tune in for the world cup, there will be no audience for MLS (except for in cities with large foreign/alien populations). Soccer is better than watching nothing, but simply cannot compete with other American sports, especially football and basketball, where there are far superior athletes to any in the world cup. THink about how many NFL receivers, running backs, and DBs who could run circles around Ronaldo -- or knock him into next week.

Weird that soccer is the most popular sport ages 12-25 in the U.S. Some people must have missed that fact. The T.V. ratings aren't shocking. It's nice to see the media finally writing something about it.

Take a look at the crowd at a U.S. game or Major League Soccer game. Most young professionals that played soccer at some capacity. Many with young families with kids.

All great empires come to end and others slowly rise. Some people have a hard time coping with the inevitability.

Americans are watching the world cup because of national pride. When people are tuning in to watch curling and ice dancing during the Olympics no one thinks these sports are having their moment. People watch to root for the US against other countries. Soccer just happens to be slightly less boring than curling and is played in a world tournament every four years. So in away yes, this is soccer's moment in America, and it will be again for a couple months in 2018, 2022,2026...

I mean people even got really excited about the July 4th hot dog eating contest in Coney island when a Japanese guy started winning.

I used to play football, basketball, baseball and ran track/cross country as well as soccer. I liked all of them. I grew up wanting to be a superstar running back in football but, like a lot of young guys, they realize they simply aren't big, fast and quick enough to do it by the time they get into about 9th grade or so.

Soccer is a good sport for smaller guys like me who only weighed about 145 lbs. by the time they made it to high school. Not many guys were born with the genes to grow to be 6'5" or more to be really good in basketball either. It is what it is.

I think it will be great for America's young people to become big fans of soccer so they they will want to play. You see lots of fat kids who just sit on the couch playing video games and messing around on the internet with PCs and smartphones. At least soccer gets them outside where they can burn off that fat and sleep better at night, etc.

If the question is "Is this soccer's moment in America?", the answer is a resounding NO!! If you have to ask the question the answer is obviously no. The WSJ is getting silly on these daily breathless pronouncements that soccer's 'time' has arrived. It has not, and never will.

I'm watching it. Just like I watch bobsledding during the Olympics, but once these are over, I really won't have an interest in it.

This is the same deal as the 1999 Women's team with the infamous Brandi Chastain ripping off her shirt after the penalty kick (I had to look up the specifics). People thought/hoped it would really kick start soccer in America. Didn't happen.

I'll enjoy the ride. It's fun to get in the patriotic spirit by watching and supporting the team.

The economics of television advertising bode VERY ill for soccer. Take American football: a 60 minute game takes three and a half hours to broadcast leaving two to two and a half hours of pure advertising time. Or take baseball with built in natural breaks every half inning. Or take basketball: the last three minutes of a tense game here can take upwards of 25 minutes with its constant time outs.

Now take soccer, with a crescendo of excitement that can be emotionally wringing - to say the least - and you can see that the massive interruptions so beholden to the networks are just not available without a viewer rebellion. And interruptions in the unpredictable action will always be unfeasible lest engendering the "Heidi" complex that networks have been fearful to tread since 1963.

So a bold prediction: Soccer will never become the dreamed of national past time unless the networks can resolve this advertising dilemma.

I think a major factor in the higher TV viewership is that the games are being played pretty much in the eastern US time zone, at times convenient for fans. Venues of the last two tournaments (Germany and South Africa) were six hours ahead of US eastern time, and the 2002 cup, in South Korean and Japan, had games in the middle of the night US time. Let's see how these high TV ratings hold up in 2018, when the tournament is in Russia, with at least an 8 hour time difference.

To most of the previous commenters, get your head out of the sand. It's happening. Real football is catching on in the U.S. Do you think NBC bought the rights to the EPL for fun? No they bought them because they make money from the pre game, half time and post game ads. As the quality of MLS picks up, you will see more and more young adults who've played the game as kids start to go to games.

Baseball is a global sport (my favorite)...and just now starting to set up shop in soccer's "holy land".(Brasil) Basketball is also global...and has various pro leagues that do good business. Stories about the decline & fall of American football are exaggeration.It will never be a global sport...but it will always occupy a larger space of popularity, viewership & emotional investment than soccer in this country.

@John Andrews@John AndrewsHave you ever attended a soccer match in Europe and seen the expressions of hate and violence there? Ever heard of a soccer hooligan or a soccer riot? Even during NFL games you don't see that kind of xenophobia and racist hatred like during soccer games in Europe and elsewhere in the world. In the US, sports are more a family event. No one in Europe in their right mind takes their kids to soccer matches. Seen any kids at the World Cup? Your blind hatred of the US is a mental disturbance.

@Donn RisoloI saw this post in 1984, 1994, 2004, 2014, and we'll see it again in 2024, etc. Americans DO care--about parties, and about America. If this was the international tiddlywinks championship, we'd cheer like crazy for America at the local bar and do it all again 4 years later.

I worked for the NASL 30 years ago. I remember a conversation with a franchise GM who confidently predicted that the USA would be a soccer mecca by 2000 because every kid in the country played the game. They'd grow up and be huge fans, yada yada yada. Is it 2000 yet? The only stat you need to know about World Cup soccer--the ONLY stat--was printed in the WSJ yesterday. In this tournament, nine players have been carried off the field on a stretcher. FIVE of them were playing again within 90 seconds.

@Terry Meland Oh, the old "American Sports Athletes Are Far Suprerior" argument. If that's true, then why did Hakeen Olajuwon and Christian Okoye (both born in Africa) excel at your supposed "superior" sports when they were admittedly failures at soccer which is the national sport of their native country? If your only argument is based on body size and strength, then you have no idea what you're talking about. Soccer players can not be muscle bound like Lebron or a typical WR. That muscle mass would cramp up and pulled muscles would be commonplace on a soccer field where players are typically running 10 km in 90 minutes (lots of sprinting). Soccer players have to have smaller frames for more endurance (think of long disctance runners) whereas basketball players and WR have to have more muscle mass for short bursts of power and speed (think of 100 meter sprinters). One is not objectively more "athletic" than another. They are built and honed for vastly different purposes.

@Frank Dickof How the heck do you know? You have a crystal ball? Soccer in America might not become the dominant sport overnight but I bet it will grow gradually pretty well over time.

It *might* be much bigger in 15 years ... especially if Team USA becomes a perennial powerhouse team like Germany or Brazil that often makes it to the final 8 or better every World Cup. Other sports will have competition for eyeballs on TV. Fans of other sports will just have to deal with it.

@Steve Smith World Cup soccer is definitely the time that you see the bandwagon fans come out of the woodwork to watch it on TV and maybe go to a few games if they can.

Hopefully, a good percentage of those people will continue to like soccer and decide to start playing on a team and watching MLS league soccer in America and perhaps some English league soccer on cable TV, etc.

@Patrick Boyle Good point about the time differences. Back in 2000 when the Summer Olympics were held in Sydney the results of the competitions were known at least 12 hours in advance of when the events were shown in the US. There was a significant snooze effect, no one wants to tune in and watch sporting events when the result is already known.

Mostly because we have been having this discussion for 30 years. Americans like games that work well for tv. games with short bursts of intense action with plenty of down time in between for commercial breaks. Soccer is just one big long slogg.

Its like hockey, without the without all the stuff that makes hockey fun to watch. Plus as Americans, we hate weakness and especially faked pain in order to get a cheap penalty. The flopping alone will make me forever be a non-soccer fan. Soccer is boring and soccer fans are annoying. And no...I will never call it football while on American soil.

IF, it's the biggest word in the dictionary. The pronouncement that the time is nigh for soccer to take off in the USA has been made constantly for the last 15 years and it doesn't happen. No, I don't have a crystal ball, but I can add 2 + 2 and come up with the right answer.

It seems that any comment made that doesn't line up with your view of the situation is denigrated as being made by stupid and ignorant people.

@Frank Dickof Well, my math suggests that soccer will become more popular in America over time. If you haven't noticed, America is changing demographically. More hispanics ... and yes, a lot of them snuck over the border illegally. South Americans and Mexicans are huge fans of soccer. I think soccer will become more popular for that reason alone.

If you were talking about Chelski and Man **itty, sure. But other clubs, such as Arsenal, are businesses (and turn profits, pre-transfer fees). Even then, the Russian/Arab money is pretty new; those clubs made it until 2003.

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